


The Only One That's Mine

by zeffyamethyst



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Sherlock (TV), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-18
Updated: 2013-01-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 11:19:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/597137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeffyamethyst/pseuds/zeffyamethyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem with having a criminal consultant for a brother is that they tend to die on you without warning.</p>
<p>AKA The one where Jim Moriarty and Q are related, and Q regrets it pretty much all the time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'll be honest, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but it's certainly fun to write.

On a Tuesday that's just like any other Tuesdays, Q is lead to a room deep within the bowels of MI-6. It's well below the torture chambers but above the escape tunnels and there's a symbolism here he tries not to analyse. 

He was working on yet another tracking chip--one designed on the principle of the _giardia lamblia_ bacteria and how it latches onto the intestinal walls without destroying it. It would be harder to dislodge than the dermal chips they currently use, and be far more cost effective--when he was interrupted by Moneypenny and a pair of men. One short, one tall, both of them sporting identical crew cuts and carrying sigs. 

The men aren't MI-6, Q would have recognised their faces if they were, but they are special force of some kind. They looked too non-threateningly threatening to be otherwise. Which begs the question of why. And who.

Couldn't be M, Q theorises as he goes through a set of cast-iron doors. For all that MI-6 is a company of shadows, the head of the organisation still prefers to operate in the light. Secret underground meetings aren't quite his style, yet. But the presence of Moneypenny means M had given whoever it was tacit permission to utilise his Quartermaster. So someone just as powerful as M. Or more. 

MI-5? Perhaps. 

His guides eventually come to a stop in front of an unassuming wooden door, looking out of place precisely because it is so unassuming. They don't knock, but the door opens a breath later and there is an equally unassuming girl holding onto the knob. Pretty but not beautiful. Petite but not short. Curvy but not plump. Everything about her is average, which makes Q like this even less. Average people in un-average places are rarely a comforting combination. 

"Hello," she says and smiles. Q blinks. Forget the comment about average; she has an utterly gorgeous smile that transform her into someone very memorable indeed. 

"Hello," he returns, because it's polite. "Are you who I'm here to see?"

"No. I'm the doorman." She steps back and indicates another door two steps beyond her. "Through there please."

"Do I get some kind of clue?" Q asks, mostly rhetorically, but curious to see if he would get a response. 

She only smiles that magical smile of hers and indicates again. Q looks back, and shocking, his guides are still there, blocking his escape. 

Well then. There's no helping it. Q makes a note to send Moneypenny a strongly worded letter when, if, he ever sees daylight again. He thought MI-6 had grown out of all this unnecessarily dramatic gestures when the Cold War officially finished. 

The room is quite nicely furnished, despite it's location and nefarious purpose, with a floral wallpaper and antique lamps, and noticeable corner cameras that follow Q's movements. All of them just trappings for the main attraction; the large solid oak table and the man who sat at one end of it. In much the same way as the door, as the girl, the man appears to be normal. Boring, even. Tidy hair, a suit, a tie, a smile. But the suit fits too well to be off the rack, or even made-to-measure, and the smile doesn't quite conceal the cold calculation in his eyes as he looks Q over. 

"Good evening, Mister Mori--"

Only three and a half words and Q knows two things; what this is about, and that he's not going to enjoy any of this. "I don't go by that name anymore," he interrupts, smiling to make up for his rudeness. "Q is good enough."

The man's smile widens, the coldness growing with it. "Of course. Take a seat."

Q doesn't miss the lack of a question in the tone. "How might I help you, Mister..."

"I have news regarding your brother."

Now how had Q known he was going to say that? Never mind that, Q just wants to know what he needs to do or say so he can go back to his trackers. He sits in the only other seat at the table, directly across from the man and furthest away from the exit. Excellent. "All right," Q says when he's settled, "What's he done now? Steal national secrets? Break into Sandringham, again? Blackmail the Prime Minister?"

And just like before, the man ignores Q, this time to browse the file in front of him. It's two inches thick, and Q has to wonder whose it is; his or his brother's. "You two had such a normal childhood," he says, flicking through a few pages. "On the surface at least."

It's a point of pride with Q that whenever someone mentions his family he doesn't blow something up, but the way this man says it, as if mentioning just another statistics in the system, oh how he wishes he didn't have so much pride. "I'm sure we're hardly the first pair of siblings to have such a background."

The man concedes the point with a blink. "True, but none of them became an invaluable employee of the crown, and a criminal mastermind."

"Criminal consultant," Q corrects sharply. "Get your facts straight, Mister Holmes."

It's not readily evident but surprise makes an appearance on the man's face, quick as a breath. It's a struggle for Q not to smirk. It had been a stab in the dark but it fit; a secretive meeting in a part of MI-6 Q hadn't been aware of, a connection to M, access to his files and that of his brother's, the cold calculation. Mycroft Holmes is a shadowy figure, even in MI-6 where every corner you turned you met ghosts and impossible people. Everyone has heard of Mycroft Holmes, or knows of him but Q can count on less than one hand the people who might have met him. M and....M. And yet here Q is, sitting across from him, the man who might as well be the government.

It's an interesting sensation, vacillating between hero worship and cautious terror. Q is surprised his voice remains steady as he says, "I keep an eye out for those with an interest in my brother. Family, you understand."

There is no softening of Mycroft Holme's face when he smiles again, but Q doesn't feel any _more_ threatened, which is all that he can hope for, he suspects. "But you don't keep an eye out for your brother."

Q shrugs. "He wouldn't appreciate it." 

If anything it's Jim who keeps an eye out for Q. An older brother's perogative, he liked to say, even though there is only four minutes, if that, between Jim's wailing entrance into the world and Q's. The last time Q tried to reciprocate, his entire home network crashed and refused to start up again. Vindictive little arse, his brother.

"So you don't know."

"Know what?" Q can't explain why but unease starts to build up in the pit of his stomach, churning round and round with each passing second. This isn't the first time someone important and deadly has come after him because of his brother. And it wouldn't be the last, but something....something is wrong. "What did he do?"

"He died."

Two simple words, and yet they refuse to register with his brain, no matter how hard Q tries. "Pardon?"

"Yesterday. He shot himself in the head." 

Q is aware of Holmes closing the file, the rustle of paper echoes in his ears like drums, but all Q can focus on is how he isn't even the least bit surprised. Not by Jim's action. Not by Holme's cool delivery. Not by anything at all. 

Mostly, he just wants to laugh.

Of course, he thinks. Of course Jim would. Hadn't he always joked about this?

"I see. Thank you. What happened to his body?" The words feel like someone else is releasing them from his mouth, moving his jaw, breathing for him. 

"At the coroner's." 

Silence settles, and it's a thick blanket inhibiting anything Q thinks of saying. They're all inappropriate anyway. If there's anything the Moriarty boys are known for, it's unusual reactions to death. Jim had laughed at their parent's funeral, and grinned while their bodies were interred. Then again, since he'd been the one to kill them, maybe it's not all that unusual. 

Holmes clears his throat. "You aren't going to ask why?"

Q jerks upright. "No. I know why."

"Enlighten me." 

It's not a request, but it's something Q doesn't mind answering. His brother is dead and no one will care, and though he knows Holmes isn't voicing the question out of sympathy, he just wants.....

Q shakes his head. "He was bored."

Jim is--was a creature of spontaneity and easily captured fascination. As a boy he had gone from game to game, then as a teenager from girl to boy to girl, nothing ever keeping his attention for long. Too many everything, he liked to say when Q asked him to just slow down. Life is an adventure, he would add. 

And when Q had asked, exasperated, annoyed, what he would do when there's nothing left to experience, Jim had grinned and joked about guns to head. It hadn't been funny then. It isn't funny now. 

Holmes' voice is an icy tundra when he repeats, "Bored."

"Yes." Q takes a deep breath that congeals in his throat. "If that's all, I'd like to go make preparations."

Perhaps Holmes said something. Perhaps the ordinary girl with the extraordinary smile opened the door for him. But all Q remembers is wondering what suit his brother would like to be buried in.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Un-betaed.  
> 2) I really, really, really wish I knew where this was going  
> 3) But hey look, a Bond&Q scene

James Bond is an idiot. It's not the first time Q has thought this.

"Did you have to shoot him?" Q demands, half his attention on tracking Bond through the building, the other half on unlocking doors before Bond arrives. Remote access isn't exactly a picnic. 

Bond's urbane voice, marred a little by his being out of breath, is like nails on chalkboard as he says, "He wouldn't stop screaming."

"Then gag him," Q snarls. 

"Time and place for that kind of thing don't you think?" Something explodes in the background. Q hopes it's the Aston Martin. It would serve Bond right. 

Q swears when he encounters another firewall in the system, and if he could have reached through the ether to strangle Bond he would have. Killing people is all well and good, hurrah for Queen and Country, but he thought double-Os were meant to know when _not_ to pull the trigger. The perfect time for Bond to practice that skill would have been with the man who designed this bloody, buggering stupid system. 

Dimly, Q is cognizant of his minions scurrying well away from him, anywhere they didn't have to witness him snarling for Bond's head on a silver platter. 

Q hates his life sometimes.

"If you survive this, Bond? We're having a talk about learning to use resources instead of putting a bullet in them."

On the main screen, Bond stops charging down a hallway full of gunmen to salute Q with an index finger to his forehead. "Looking forward to it. In the meantime, do your bloody job."

Maybe it's not his life Q hates, it's Bond. 

Some indeterminate time later, he collapses back in his seat, fingers aching, head pounding in time to his heartbeat and if he has to play tag with another set of security codes in his life again he's going to murder someone. All over the main screen, buildings explode in all the colours of the rainbow, reflecting Q's temper right now. In the distance is a CIA charter plane that extracted Bond moments before. 

"Tea?"

Q blinks, looks up. Moneypenny with a blessed steaming cup of what smells like Lady Grey.

"Is it poisoned?" Q asks.

"Would you like it to be?" Moneypenny has a wonderfully bland, contradictory way of looking at people. Pleasant but distant. Charming but likely plotting your death. Beautiful but deadly. Q rather likes her.

"If it'll get rid of this headache," Q says, reaching for the cup.

"Then maybe I'll just poison Bond's tea instead," Moneypenny offers, and Q promptly chokes.

"Oh God." He swipes at his chin, and his hand comes away wet. At least his minions might stop watching him like a ticking time bomb now, hard to be afraid of a man who just spilled tea on himself. "Would you?"

Moneypenny's skirt hikes up a few tantalising inches when she sits on the corner of his desk. Q enjoys living, but he still takes a peek because Jesus fucking Christ, who wouldn't? "For you, Quartermaster?" she says, smiling. "Anything."

Instantly, Q is on guard. "What does he want?"

"Who?" Moneypenny makes a good show of confusion but Q knows this game. He's played it with his brother's runners before. Half of his university life was spent being suspicious of every woman, or man, who showed an interest in him because they were inevitably in his brother's employ. Joining MI-6 hadn't helped. It was one of Jim's favourite lessons, and one Q took to heart; never trust a smile.

"M," Q drawls.

It's only because he's so close that he sees the exact moment Moneypenny switches from colleague to an agent. It's subtle; the line of her shoulders straighten and there's a slight upward tilt of her chin. To most people, there wouldn't have been a discernible difference. She didn't leave the field because she was a _bad_ agent, no matter what the current MI-6 gossip. Beautiful but deadly, Q reminds himself. Moneypenny leans back, folding her arms. "He would like to see you in the office, when you're next available," she recites.

Which means right bloody now. Q can read between the lines, thank you.

"No rest for the wicked." He sets down the tea with a sigh, and gives Moneypenny an expectant look. "Shall we?"

It's a path Q knows well by now, but he lets Moneypenny lead the way. "003 back from Madrid yet?" he asks. It's well known around the office that Moneypenny never gossips, but it's worth a try. 

Q likes working with 003. She's ruthless and efficient, none of this killing useful people business. Q doesn't feel like he's hitting his head against a brick wall when he tells her to do something because she just does it. No lip either. Somewhat similar to working with a robot, Q imagines. Maybe one day all double-Os will be replaced by robots and his life will finally be ordered and unexciting. It's a nice dream.

Moneypenny's amused smirk answers him. "Good job with 007. I think he made less of a mess than he usually does," she says insead.

Q snorts. "I counted. He still met his mission average for body counts, women seduced, and collateral damage."

"But no national monuments destroyed. At least a quarter of his equipment got onto that plane in one piece. He only made one impossible demand of his agent assist. And M drank two fingers of scotch less than the usual 007 mission." She opens the entrance up to M's office antechamber, and steps back. "Congratulations, Quartermaster."

He eyes her as he moves past. "Do you spy on everyone?"

"Now that would be rude," Moneypenny says. It isn't exactly a clear cut denial. Going over to her desk, she tilts her head at the open doorway through which Q can see M's seated form. "Go right ahead."

Q finds it easy to think of this man as M. He hadn't known the previous one long enough for the sobriquet to stick in his throat, for it to matter that she's dead. As one of MI-6's worker bees, he had only seen her the once; when the entire department moved down to underground London. They realised their Q was caught up in the blast, along with most of the senior staff, and before he knows it, a woman who was the epitome of the British Bulldog was declaring him the new quartermaster. Then there was Bond. There was Silva. And she was dead. 

One day, if Q survives long enough, it might matter when an M dies.

In the meantime, he treats this one with respect bordering on wariness, and takes the seat that affords him a view of the exit. "Sir."

The door closes. 

Q has never realised how stifling M's office is until now, as he's forced to sit there and wait for M to acknowledge him. The room seems to hold all the weight of MI-6's bloody history in the stern-faced kings and queens that line the wall, and the dark furniture that absorbed all the light. It's intimidation tactics, pure and simple, and it works like a charm. Lovely view of the Thames though, distorted as it is by bulletproof glass. M finally puts down whatever report he's reading and meet's Q's eyes. 

"You'll be pleased to hear Bond is already up and about despite the minor damage to his lung."

Minor in MI-6 language is the equivalent of a month's stay in a hospital for the general populace. During this mission, for example, Bond had taken a knife between his right third and fourth intercostal space. He almost certainly has a pneumothorax, possibly a tension haemo-pneumothorax, and he would only get two week's respite before another situation needs his personal touch. 'Minor' Q's arse. 

"Right, good for him." It's on the tip of his tongue to ask if he can go back to his room now, but one didn't say things like that to the head of MI-6 unless one is feeling suicidal today. 

M makes a humming noise that could mean anything. "And I hear you've been terrorising your staff. The phrase 'downright unpleasant' has been bandied about the past few days."

Q feels his eyes narrowing at the segue, because one, M isn't given to just saying anything that enters his head, and two, this is MI-6 where everything is subject to suspicion.

"It's a talent, sir," Q replies. 

"I'm sure. Take a week off, Q." That sounds awfully like an order.

"Sir? If my abilities are being questioned--"

"Losing one's only family member would affect anyone's abilities," M cuts in, ruthless as a--well, a knife between the ribs. 

Q's breath doesn't audibly catch, but it feels like he can't breathe for a moment. He'd been doing such a bang up job of not thinking about it too. About Jim's bloody face, his mocking little smile that even death couldn't erase. All the minute details of his death his autopsy report had laid out over fifteen A4 pages in 10 point Times New Roman. Q hadn't been able to dig through the police report too, as weak as that might sound. He had been putting that off for later. 

Seeing as how he might throw up if his mind keeps going on this track, he latches onto the other matter of Jim, namely their connection and how M has yet to say anything about threats to national security and executions. "You knew about him all along."

The interesting part, Q thinks as he watches M nod, is how very little emotions are displayed on the man's face. A few months ago, Q might have been able to garner some kind of clue as to what was going on, but international incidents and national tension has taken their toll. M is pleasant but hardly approachable anymore. "Holmes thought it a pertinent piece of information to bring up when you were appointed," he says, as if commenting on the weather.

Meaning the previous M knew too, which makes Q wonder, uncharitably perhaps, when she might have made use of the information for the better good of the commonwealth. Q shoves that thought away because he can't afford seeds of doubts so early in his career. "I see," he says slowly. "If I might ask, what's his interest in my brother? A criminal consultant who lends his services out to mobsters and crime lords is hardly danger enough to warrant the attention of Mycroft Holmes."

It's a bold question that might do more harm than good but Q's achilles heels has always been his curiosity.

M's mouth parts the slightest bit; a fraction of surprise on an otherwise impassive face. "You might take the time to watch the evening news once in a while," he advises. 

That is of absolutely no help. Why on earth would Q watch the news? He already knows about everything going on in the world and if he wants trashy entertainment to dull the mind he'd watch all the archived tapes of 005 trying and failing to seduce every single target. Besides, he doesn't own a television. 

"Thank you, sir. Might I go now," Q asks when it appears that there is nothing more forthcoming. 

M inclines his head, adding, "One week," just as Q stands up.

It's a struggle not to roll his eyes but Q manages. 

******

Not owning a television, Q does the next best thing and googles. He gets the pertinent information in less than three seconds. 

Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, recently deceased, presumed suicide. 

Connecting the dots is easy after that. Q doesn't even need to dig through any private servers. 

Jim and his insatiable need for a little excitement, encountering a mind as brilliant as Sherlock Holmes. How it must have thrilled him. And how disappointing when that brilliant mind played the game wrong. Because that was always the problem, wasn't it? No one could play Jim's games the way he wanted them to. Even Q hadn't been able to fathom them and he'd known Jim since birth. It was inevitable that every one of Jim's playmates would bore him. 

Q bookmarks the tab that announces the time and date of Sherlock Holme's public funeral, and heads for the kitchen. Tea solves everything, he'd been taught by a very old, very kind foster mother, and she had yet to be proven wrong. 

The kettle is boiling and Q is reaching for a cup when the area between Q's shoulderblades start to itch. A spider-crawling-under-the-shirt kind of itch, the kind Q has come to associate with being stared at. 

"Must you?" he asks, closing his eyes briefly.

"Practice," comes Bond's voice. Q knows it's Bond's because he's had that voice in his ear making sarcastic comments for most days out of the past two weeks. He could pick it out of a crowded bar on a Saturday night, probably.

"You could practice using the door," Q suggests, pulling out another cup. "A novel concept I know, but one worth trying for a change of pace."

"But I wouldn't want to break tradition." Bond sounds amused. Q wants to throw hot tea in his face. So Bond can't be too hurt then.

The thought makes everything tolerable until Q turns around and Bond is lounging against the kitchen entrance in the bloodiest shirt Q has ever seen. The urge to fling hot tea is back.

"Shower," Q snaps. 

Bond quirks an eyebrow. "Lovely to see you too, Q. Been worried about me?"

"Not as much as I'm worried about the state of my apartment now that you've tracked blood through it." Q doesn't know why but Bond brings out the worst in him. He's not nearly so bad with other double-Os he swears, but one second in Bond's presence and it's all vicious banter coming out of his mouth. 

Bond doesn't exactly help matters by being something of a right prick.

"Far be it for me to sully your apartment." Bond pushes off lazily, the ruined shirt failing to hide ripple of muscles and okay, Q recognises that part of his issue with Bond comes from the fact he finds the arsehole attractive. "Don't suppose you care to join me?"

"In your dreams," Q says because finding someone attractive doesn't mean he has to sleep with them. God only knows what that would do to Bond's already over-inflated ego.

"Always." Bond easily navigates the apartment as he sheds his shirt, Q following behind and doing his best not to stare. If Q had known anything at all about Bond, he might have kicked him out the first time he broken into the partment. Unfortunately, Q had been naive and stupid at the time, only to later came to the realisation that Bond is something of a stray dog. Once he had some inkling of acceptance, he _never left_.

He also has no concept of keeping his bloody hands to himself. Before Q can stop him, Bond is reaching for the one thing in the apartment he hadn't wanted noticed. 

"James William Moriarty? What a mouthful."

With a barely restrained snarl, Q snatches the crumpled paper out of Bond's hand. What kind of person went to the trouble of unfolding balled up paper and reading it? Spies, his brain answered. "Have you ever heard of privacy?" he demands.

"No," Bond answers, watching Q throw it away, properly into the bin this time. "Must be someone you know well if you're writing their death notice for the papers."

"What does it matter?" 

Bond arches an eyebrow. "It doesn't, except that it's obviously important to you." 

What the hell did that mean? The seconds audibly tick by, courtesy of the kitchen clock, and those seconds spent staring at Bond reveal nothing. "And I repeat, what does it matter to you," Q says and looks from Bond to the bathroom pointedly. 

"Aren't we prickly today," Bond remarks and resumes his trek. 

Q snorts and says, "Don't be delusional. I'm prickly all the time." Q deviates slightly, grabbing a towel out of the linen closet and throws it at Bond just as he reaches the bathroom. The bastard had the nerve to catch it with one hand, without even looking. 

"Thank you kindly, Q," Bond says, throwing him a grin. Bastard, bastard, bastard.

It's one thing to tell yourself you aren't going to get riled up by Bond, again. It's another thing entirely to be faced with the man and refrain from punching him. Q and the art of zen have had no choice but to become intimate friends since meeting James Bond. A few careful breaths and Q sounds almost calm saying, "Your wallet please."

It's the same old routine where Bond will throw those clothes out and Q will do him the favour of buying a new shirt and a pair of trousers. And then, on the way back, Q will get food from a five star restaurant and very old, very expensive bottle of wine because he'll be damned if he's not getting anything out of it for himself. 

"I'm in the mood for something oriental," Bond says just before closing the bathroom door.

So of course Q comes back with boxes of African cuisine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am incredibly annoyed by how short this chapter is, but I thought it ended on a good place so I'm overruled myself. My sincerest apologies if anyone else is annoyed by its shortness.

It is an overcast day when the coffin containing Sherlock Holme's body is lowered into the ground. It was a tastefully done ceremony with the minimum amount of fuss, the eulogy given by one John Watson who put on a brave face but can't quite hide the worn edges held together by pure determination. Q thinks he sees the ordinary girl and Mycroft Holmes at the start but afterwards there are no signs of them at all. 

Later, the newspaper will probably lavish attention on the attendees; the politicians and the celebrities, the ordinary citizens whom Sherlock Holmes had helped. The power and the human stories. No one notices Q standing in the back, watching the audience more than he watches the podium. 

Sherlock Holmes is a hero despite what happened, which speaks for the loyalty of the people. Surprising in this day and age.

Q fakes an invitation to the wake, and introduces himself as one of Sherlock's old university friends. He knows enough about Sherlock from public records to fake it, and Sherlock didn't have so many friends that people would question his presence. 

The watercress sandwiches were nice, though the tea was a little weak. The lady handing them out patted Q's hand and told him he should eat a bit more, why don't you have another one, dear. Q couldn't say no. Another one became another two then four then Q is left trying to eat while juggling four sandwiches. 

"Mrs Hudson means well."

Q looks up, his mouth stuffed full and nearly chokes on his sandwich. He was hoping to go unnoticed and the dead man's best friend talking to him isn't exactly the definition of it. "Uh, hello." He holds out his hand, the one full of sandwiches, and it's a juggle to keep them from spilling all over the floor. "Sorry, um. Shit."

John Watson laughs, the wrinkles disappearing momentarily until he looks his age, only to come back with a vengeance when the reality of the situation sinks in again. Q watches John Watson bury his mirth underneath a more appropriate sorrow, and doesn't acknowledge the unwanted spike of sympathy. 

Wearing a subdued smile now, John Watson huddles in to the corner beside Q, hands digging deep into his pockets. "Hi, I'm John. So, you're one of Sherlock's friends? Uni, I think Sally said."

Q chokes down the rest of the sandwich and nods. "Yes, uh, lab partners for a semester. Quentin, sorry, I should've introduced myself." It's a name that will do as well as any other. That it's nowhere near his own name is also a comfort. 

There is that inevitable moment of awkward silence when two strangers first meet, then John Watson is asking, with hesitation strewn throughout his voice, "What was he like? Back then." 

Something in the way John Watson looks, eager and desperate not to seem so, is an unwelcome reminder of Q's own reaction to Jim so it's not exactly Sherlock Holmes Q is thinking of as he answers, "An insufferable genius who wasn't afraid to let everyone know it. A complete smartarse who could never shut up about how great he was. Unfortunately, he was right. He was always right."

The grin that lights up John Watson's face is nowhere near as bright as his laughter but there's unmistakable affection there, and again, that spike of sympathy worms its way under Q's skin. "Yeah, that sounds exactly like Sherlock. He didn't change, in case you were wondering." 

"Men of his calibre don't tend to," Q says.

John Watson and he smile at each other, united by the memory of insufferable geniuses. "Made you really want to punch him, didn't he," John Watson says. 

"Every single bloody day," Q says, remembering the time Jim broke into his dormitory to hide from the police. Or was it the Italian mob? Or the Irish? As long as Q has known Jim, there wasn't a single day when Jim hadn't pissed someone off. 

"Always came through for you in the end though," John Watson adds. 

Q nods, biting down on another sandwich to keep his mouth from running away from him. At this rate he's going to actually start missing Jim's chaotic presence in his life and he couldn't have that. "Anyway," John Watson says with cheer so false Q winced in second-hand embarassment, "Bringing the mood down wasn't my intention. Sorry about that."

"Well, to be fair, it's a funeral, I don't think you could have bought the mood down much more," Q feels compelled to point out. 

John Watson concedes with a nod. He sighs and digs his hands deeper into his pockets, looking around the hall. "Sherlock would've hated all this, you know. Wouldn't understand why people had to make a such a big deal out of it. It's just death, not logical to mourn for an empty body or some nonsense."

"Maybe he would have understood it if it was couched in scientific terms. Nature abhors a vacuum," Q adds when John Watson turns a quizzical look on him. 

"Someone should've told Moriarty that," John Watson says with a twist of his lips. 

And that is when Q realises what he's doing; eating in the company of a man who hated his brother, at a funeral for a man who had died _because_ of his brother. All of a sudden, the sandwich tastes of ash and blood in his mouth. Q loves his brother, that has never been in doubt, but he's also not blind to the havoc Jim wreaks when he's in the throes of his crazy, insane, mad genius. If Jim's life had a motto it would contain some variation of the phrase, 'collateral damage'. 

Luckily, John Watson is so deep in his contemplation of how much he hates Jim, that he doesn't notice Q's sudden silence. 

"I'm sorry," Q says, and even he's not sure what he's apologising for. "I have to go."

John Watson jerks upright, and he blinks at Q for a second or two, then says, "Oh, of course. Right, sorry for, well." He waves a hand and Q nods like he understands. "Thanks for listening to me, I should get back to helping Mrs Hudson."

"Please thank her for the sandwiches," Q dutifully says. 

"Not at all." John Watson clears his throat, his gaze sliding to Q's ears as he adds, "Maybe, if you don't mind, we could get coffee and uh it'd be nice to talk to someone who knew Sherlock. Back then."

He said that phrase, 'back then', as if he was talking about some magical time in which the Great Sherlock Holmes was a likable human being. If Sherlock Holmes was ever anything like Jim, however, Q doubts there was a time when the man was anywhere near likable. He knows grief though, so he smiles at John Watson, nodding peaceably. "Here, my card."

MI-6 printed out business cards for him when he became Q, and according to the elegant font, he was a senior IT consultant at a semi-made up lawfirm. John Watson put the card away and after a few pleasant, bland words of farewell, Q leaves the reception. 

After waiting at the kerb for only five minutes a taxi pulls up in front of him, and he's just congratulating himself on his luck when the other passenger door opens and someone else, bundled up in a fur coat and smelling of something decidedly expensive, slides in beside him.

"Excuse me," Q says, as affronted as only an Englishman could be, "I--"

The rest of his indignant words die in a fiery death when his eyes fall on sharp cheekbones, amused dark eyes, and crimson lips curled up at the corners. 

"Fuck," Q said with immense feeling. 

Irene Adler's smile widens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John Watson is ridiculously hard to write. Here's hoping I have better luck with Irene.


End file.
